Counting Coup
by Mynuet
Summary: Kouga. Kagura. What's the flip side of hate again?
1. Gotcha!

Disclaimer: I never bother with disclaimers, because they have as much legal relevance as used tissue, and delay the start of the story. However, I made a promise, and am now keeping it... KELLY! This contains the pairing you hate. Don't read it. [For everybody else, give it a chance. It just might grow on you.]  
  
Counting Coup  
  
by Sharlene  
  
He could smell her. It was a different scent than it had been before Naraku was defeated, before his status in the clan had suffered from being rejected by the woman he chose. His lips curled into a fierce smile as his posture slipped easily from the hunter to the stalker. Without a sound, he moved, closing in on where his quarry was hiding.  
  
A hiss of indrawn breath and a minute stiffening of muscles was the only response as he slid out of the trees, faster than thought, one arm going around her delicate neck and the jerking her up and back. Her toes barely brushed the ground as he supported her weight with an arm around her waist, his other arm pressing into her windpipe and slowly cutting off her air. The edges of her vision started to blur and she sent her elbows back into her captor's stomach, enraged at the thought that she would die without a fight, no matter how weak a resistance it was.  
  
Her struggles stopped when a low chuckle sounded in her ear, impossibly loud, but so soft that it sent messages of alert down her spine and to the hairs on the back of her neck. The hot breath on her skin and the feeling of impending death sensitized her skin and senses to a painful point. She could feel the heat of his skin, see the gloom of the forest around her, taste the copper tang of fear in her mouth, and smell of fur and sweat, somewhere between wild animal and man.  
  
"Why don't you hurry up and kill me, then? Go ahead, it's what you've wanted to do." Her voice was a snarl of defiance, every bit as arrogant as it had been when she held the upper hand and it was his kinsmen who paid the ultimate price.  
  
"If you want to die, you'll have to do it yourself, since I've got better things to do." He laughed and the arm around her neck loosened just before the arm at her waist spun her around and then tossed her to the ground. She glared up at him, the light shining off of a fang exposed by his feral grin. His blue eyes shone with mockery as he held up her hair feathers between two fingers. "Later."  
  
In a blink, he was gone, vanished as if he had only been a waking nightmare. Only the feeling of her hair brushing her shoulders and the lingering scent of him in the air told her that her mind hadn't played tricks on her. That damnable wolf had gotten the better of her. After all this time, he had had the chance to kill her and he hadn't bothered. She rubbed her neck and felt the fire of an unholy rage rising in her. He would pay. She would see to it.  
  
  
  
Author's Note: Thanks to everybody on the KougaKagura mailing list for their support, especially Thunk, whose comments on the fic will be useful as I continue. If you happen to like this couple and want to join our little corner of the web, the address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kougakagura - but there've been more parts of this posted there as a rough draft, so don't go searching through the archives if you hate spoilers. ;)  
  
As for the title: Coup is a French word, pronounced coo. In the Indian languages, "war count" was the definition. Coup could be counted by approaching an enemy close enough to strike him with something held in the hand. Coup could be counted without either killing or scalping. The greatest coup went to the warrior who, while counting coup, captured the enemy's horses, weapons, and religious vestments. http://wwmag.net/Pages/coup.htm 


	2. One good turn deserves another

She waited, crouched in the limb of a leafy tree, for her prey to come in sight. The wind was dead calm around her, not one leaf stirring with a vagrant breeze. Nothing moved as she waited and watched. Soon, he came, dust surrounding him as he ran, heedless of the world around him. She took a certain satisfaction in the way the look of serenity and bliss dissolved from his face as his world flipped one hundred and eighty degrees.  
  
Kouga heard the laughter as he swung, suspended by one foot from a tall tree branch. He cursed, loudly and virulently. Caught like a brainless rabbit, all because he had let his guard down enough to enjoy the act of running. It had been so long since he felt free to run aimlessly, not hunting, not seeking, not returning home - just feeling the wind stinging his face and whipping his hair behind him. The boost of the shikon shards was long gone, but the time he had spent with them had enhanced his already considerable leg muscles to the point where nothing, not youkai or human or animal, could catch up with him. He could even outrun an arrow but not an idiotically simple snare.  
  
Kagura smirked as she dangled her feet from the branch she was sitting on. Keeping the air around her still had been exhausting, but worth it. "Going somewhere, wolf?"  
  
"Anywhere that doesn't have your stink." Kouga tried to pull himself up to where he could loosen the rope from around his foot, but he was too off balance. He stopped when he felt her fan tapping one of his thighs. One of his /bare/ thighs, since gravity had done its work on his kilt.  
  
"So much for the BIG bad wolf, neh, Kouga-kun?" Her voice was sweet as honey, poisonous as arsenic.  
  
Kouga was bright red, partially from the blood rush to the head, partially from the blush to end all blushes. "What can I say, you're enough to shrivel any man."  
  
" I would think you'd manage to be polite to someone who could kill you. Then again, you probably don't know how, you poor thing." She stepped delicately around him, avoiding his flailing limbs, and pulled out her fan. Opening it with a noise like the cracking of the world, she turned on Kouga, and he prepared himself to die, trussed up like any dumb, hunted animal. Instead she laughed.  
  
"Do you know, I think you were right... It's more fun not to kill you. Instead, I'll take something in return for what you took." Three sharp arm movements, and Kouga's wolf tail, ponytail and headband were lying on the ground. A slight wave and a breeze carried the trophies to Kagura's waiting hands. "See you around, wolf."  
  
Kouga watched her go, every inch of her seeming to taunt him, from the way her head was tilted to the way her backside swayed as she walked away. He started working on getting loose again, looping his free foot around the bound one for leverage as he bent and twisted in an effort to reach the knot. This was more than just tit for tat, more than the empty revenge for a clan that had defied him, more than payback for putting him in a humiliating position. This was war... And his mouth curled into a grin as he started planning his next step.  
  
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Author's note: No, updates won't always happen this fast. I'm just posting more of what's already written from the K/K list. Updates will always happen there first, so I can get feedback. ;) At any rate, I hope y'all enjoy, and please leave me a note to say what you thought. 


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